‘Everyone’s mortgage is about to get more expensive’

A roundup of what The Globe and Mail's market strategist Scott Barlow is reading today on the Web

Earlier in the week, we featured the Business Insider story "These 13 stocks will see profits explode higher in 2018."

It generated a lot of traffic up until Business Insider, well within their rights, moved the piece behind its paywall in the afternoon. So apologies to those who couldn't get access, and I also recommend clicking on today's similar report below before they restrict access to that too,

CIBC's analysis of Wednesday Bank of Canada rate hike was the most useful in my opinion,

"[the] rate hike was a rear view mirror move, but the Bank of Canada hints that the view out the front window isn't quite as sunny. Canada did so well in 2017 that it left little slack in labour markets or capacity in its wake, easily justifying a quarter point hike today … The Bank's statement put NAFTA uncertainties right up front in their statement, and also explained that "monetary accommodation" (ie. rates at stimulative levels) will be needed to reach their growth and inflation forecasts"

"@SBarlow_ROB CIBC on BoC hike: "rate hike was a rear view mirror move, but the Bank of Canada hints that the view out the front window isn't quite as sunny" – (research excerpt) Twitter

"Bank of Canada hikes interest rate again, but warns of NAFTA fallout" – Report on Business

"The Bank of Canada Couldn't Pull Off a Dovish Hike" – Kawa, Bloomberg

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Conflicting forecasts on the oil price were apparent in research yesterday for a change (yes, that was sarcasm). National Bank is bearish in light of rising U.S. oil production,

"Demand/supply fundamentals are currently favourable to oil and could indeed lift prices further over the near term. But the higher WTI goes, the more brutal the subsequent decline is likely to be. WTI oil is now high enough above break-even prices for the marginal producer (i.e. shale oil players) to rekindle output from shale oil."

Morgan Stanley is bullish, largely because of futures markets,

"we expect deferred prices to decline from current levels as producer activity and 2019 hedging ramp up, this may only have a limited impact on spot prices as lower inventories would instead increase the level of backwardation. Consequently, we see increasing upside risks to our $62/bbl Brent and $57.5/bbl WTI forecast for the coming months. Despite these risks, we find that oil markets still offer two fundamentally driven investment opportunities: a high positive carry from backwardation as well as a likely inversion of oil's volatility term structure."

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"@SBarlow_ROB NBF on oil: "the higher WTI goes, the more brutal the subsequent decline is likely to be" – (research excerpt) Twitter

When a finance writer starts with "this is speculation but …", I need to trust them a lot to keep reading. So, in linking to this piece, I'm giving away my credibility rating on FT Alphaville's Matthew Klein (it's high),

"It's possible the recent price collapse below $10,000 per bitcoin is part of a coordinated effort by regulators to apply unconventional pressure techniques on North Korean elites. If so, well done!"

Tweet of the day: "@RBCGAMChiefEcon At present, we assign a 35% chance that NAFTA is torn up (down from a peak of 45% last Fall) versus a 40% chance that NAFTA remains unaltered (though conceivably going through the wringer of a termination letter along the way): bitly.com/2yBxdIH " – Twitter

Diversion: "The 100 Most Important Pop Culture Moments of the Last 10 Years: #61-80" – i09